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Sopida Wongwas

About Me

I am undertaking a full-time PhD at the University of Warwick, supervised by Christophe CorreLink opens in a new window and Vasilios StavrosLink opens in a new window, which began in October 2020. I graduated a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Sheffield in 2019 and a MSc in Cosmetic Science from Liverpool John Moores University in 2020. In my free time, I joined the Taekwondo club during my BSc and Tap dance during the 2nd year of my PhD. In my 4th year of PhD, I am a Welfare and inclusion officer of Warwick University Fencing Club. I also like to go hiking with my friends on the weekends.

Research

My PhD project is focused on heterologous expression and engineering of mycosporine-like amino acid (MAA) biosynthetic gene clusters in Streptomyces hosts. Mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) are groups of natural products from marine organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and algae that have sun protection capabilities. The aim is to express the production of Mycosporine-glycine and other MAAs in Streptomyces. Then, the MAAs produced will be isolated and elucidated the structure using analytical chemistry techniques (i.e., HPLC, MS and NMR).

At the moment, I produced some plasmids with mycosporine-glycine directed gene clusters and conjugated into S. coelicolor M1152, S. albus, and S. venezuelae to compare the production of mycosporine-glycine.

Natural Sunscreens Cartoon

I made a poster about my research hereLink opens in a new window.

Sopida

Sopida Wongwas